Bound by Night(69)

I hope you’re watching this, Chuck. I hope you lose a lot of sleep, you bastard.
“Don’t kill her!” Chuck’s shout blared over the
 din of her own thoughts, making her even angrier. The mere sound of his voice irritated her. Had he always had that whiny, nasally tone that made everything he said come across like a complaint?
Riker tucked her close. “No matter what happens, stay still,” he whispered.
Her gut rolled. The next instant, Riker grunted and jerked, and she knew he’d been struck by a shock dart.
“Get back,” Chuck warned, and a moment later, Riker let out another pained grunt.
Nicole cracked her eyelids just enough to see Riker stiffen and collapse onto the concrete in a sprawl of flailing limbs. It took every ounce of self-restraint she had to remain limp and unmoving, when all she wanted to do was leap to her feet and help him.
She heard the sound of flesh-on-flesh strikes; Chuck was beating Riker.
Don’t cry . . . don’t cry . . .
By some miracle, she managed to keep her lids squeezed tight and not shed a tear. An endless minute later, she felt herself being lifted, and she risked another peek to see Chuck slamming the chamber door, locking an unconscious Riker inside.
Chuck plopped her unceremoniously onto an exam table and put his fingers to her throat, feeling for a pulse. “Nicole?”
She lifted her lids. “Surprise, asshole.”
Chuck’s eyes widened in disbelief. Lifting her leg in a powerful surge, she bashed him in the face with her knee. Blood spurted, and he fell back with a shout, clutching his nose. “Bitch!” He came at her, but she dodged his fist and rolled onto the floor.
She hit the tiles hard. Pain speared her hip and shoulder. Flailing like a marionette having a seizure, she made it to her feet, but Chuck nailed her with a kick to the back of the knee, and she spun into an instrument tray. Her fingers found a scalpel.
She didn’t hesitate.
Spinning in an uncoordinated circle, she swung the blade, catching Chuck in the neck. The wound was barely a scratch, but Chuck screamed like he was dying, grabbed his throat, and staggered toward an exit.
“Nicole! Hurry!” Riker’s strangled shout drew her attention away from her fleeing brother. S hebolted to the chamber, where thick jets of fog were spewing from holes in the ceiling. Her heart nearly stopped.
Boric-acid gas. The dozens of vampires Chuck had killed using her “order” had died that way, suffering in gas chambers, all caught on video.
Hands shaking so hard she was barely able to work the control panel by the chamber door, she punched buttons, cutting off the gas and unlocking the door.
Riker burst out of the room, gasping for breath.
“I know where they keep the antidote.” She ran across the room to a glass cabinet and swept boxes of meds, vials, and first-aid items onto the floor, desperate to find the container marked as . . . yes, right there! She raced back to Riker, who was slumped against the wall, struggling to breathe.
“This . . . sucks.”
“The gas is highly concentrated.” She measured five CCs of antidote into a syringe. “It’s ten times the strength of the powder I used on you. You’ll need an injection and a nasal application. Hold still.” She plunged the needle into his shoulder and pushed the medicine into his muscles. When the syringe was empty, she tossed it to the ground and broke open an ampoule of powder.#p#分页标题#e#
“Sniff hard.” She put the little glass container up to his nose and inhaled with him, as if that would help.
Almost instantly, he stood up straighter, and his color went from ashen to tan. “Better.”
“It’ll take about an hour for all the symptoms to disappear, but we can’t wait. We’ve got to get out of here. Chuck will send the police and VAST.” She shot a glance at the supply closet. “But first, we’re destroying this lab.”

Chapter 22
As Riker caught his breath, Nicole kicked open a locked fi le drawer and loaded a plastic garbage bag with thick fi les. When the drawer was empty, she hit the meds cabinet next and swept dozens of pill bottles and vials into the open bag. Moving quickly, she left the stuffed bag next to the exit and then began hauling gallon-sized jugs out of a closet.
“I’ll start a fi re with these,” she said, “but if there are any vampires in these chambers, we need to free them first.”
She darted to the cage in the center of the room, where a scrawny, gangly male vampire, a teen by Riker’s estimation, huddled inside. He wore only a pair of loose navy sweatpants and a stained white T-shirt that showed way too many ribs through the thin fabric.
Still feeling like he was breathing fi re, Riker blocked her. “I’ll do it. We don’t know how he’ll react. Stand back.”